American burns passport to stay in Taiwan as 'doomsday' approacheth

The China Post news staff--A U.S. man who came to Taiwan with his wife and children in March allegedly destroyed his passport in a show of his determination to stay on the island despite having overstayed his visa by six months, the Chinese-language United Evening News reported yesterday.

The 43-year-old Michigan native is required to leave Taiwan within a specified period of time or be repatriated, the report cited the National Immigration Agency as saying.

Kyle said he was reading the Bible in March when he received a revelation of the apocalypse, foreseeing the annihilation of the U.S. This prompted him to bring his pregnant wife and two children to the "Salvation Land" of Taiwan based on instructions from Yehovah. This was his first trip to the island, Kyle said.

After arriving in Taiwan in March, Kyle's family lived in Taipei, where his third child was born, until May when they moved to a rented house in a mountainous village of Puli Township in Central Taiwan's Nantou County.

Kyle made a living by selling wheat cakes beside the Paper Dome in Puli Township at 3 p.m. every day, but such a hard life triggered complaints from his wife. When returning home one day in September, Kyle found that his wife and three children were not home.

Kyle confessed to police about overstaying his visa and asked for assistance in locating the whereabouts of his wife and children. It was confirmed later that his family members had already returned to the U.S. in September.

Nevertheless, Kyle was still unwilling to return to the U.S. on the grounds that Americans show too great regard for fame and wealth. He then incinerated his passport to show his determination to stay.

Kyle said that over the past four months he has made good friends with many people in Taomi village for they are humble, friendly and love nature.

In Kyle's rented house, there was no television set and only some simple chairs and desks piled with Bibles and other religious books.

He called for the government here to issue him citizenship.

But the Nantou branch of the National Immigration Agency said that Kyle should have been sent to a shelter house awaiting repatriation, but out of humanitarian concern, the agency is only requiring Kyle to voluntarily leave Taiwan before a specified deadline or be forcefully repatriated.